2026 State of Mobile is Live!
Gaming Insights · Rui Ma · March 2026
Winning with Live Ops: Strategic Insights from Top-Grossing Mobile Games
This report focuses on the Live Ops strategies behind the world’s top-grossing mobile games in 2025, examining how leading publishers leverage interconnected event systems, continuous content iteration, and deeply embedded incentive design to cut through market volatility and sustain player attention, engagement and monetisation.
Following significant global macroeconomic shifts and changes in player behavior, the mobile games market has entered a pivotal phase of redefining its growth logic. While market volatility persists, the success of leading titles and breakout hits points clearly to a core driver of sustainable performance: refined, high-quality Live Ops design.
This report examines the Live Ops strategies behind 2025’s top-grossing mobile games, offering in-depth insights into how leading publishers leverage interconnected event systems, continuous content iteration and deeply structured incentive frameworks to cut through market noise and sustain player attention and monetisation intent.
Note: Sensor Tower's revenue data is based on in-app purchase (IAP) estimates from App Store and Google Play, excluding ad monetisation, revenue from third-party Android stores or direct payments made via official brand websites or other alternative payment channels. Unless otherwise specified as net revenue, all revenue figures refer to gross revenue (i.e. before platform fees are deducted).
Global Mobile Game Revenue to Reach $82 Billion in 2025, with Strategy and Puzzle Titles Leading Growth
The global mobile games market continues to demonstrate strong resilience and maturity. After pandemic-driven hypergrowth followed by a period of market correction, the industry has successfully returned to a growth trajectory. In 2025, total annual in-app purchase revenue is projected to reach $82 billion.
Following the surge in downloads during the pandemic, annual installs have stabilised at over 50 billion per year, marking a shift from rapid expansion to structural maturity. As a result, publisher strategies are increasingly centered on refined Live Ops execution – extending game lifecycles, improving user quality and maximizing lifetime value (LTV).
In 2025, 135 mobile games generated over $100 million in IAP revenue, collectively reaching $50.8 billion. Strategy titles, driven by high-spending players and long lifecycle dynamics, generated nearly $15 billion, making them the category with the highest capital intensity and return potential. Puzzle games, supported by broad user reach and stable monetisation conversion, demonstrate how refined Live Ops execution can unlock top-tier commercial performance.
In 2025, survival strategy titles Last War: Survival and Whiteout Survival firmly secured the top two positions on the global mobile game revenue rankings, while maintaining strong growth momentum. Full-year revenue is projected to reach $2.4 billion and $2.2 billion, respectively – underscoring the strategy genre’s leadership in activating high-spending players and maximising long-term lifecycle value.
High-Density, Multi-Layered Live Ops Systems Drive Dual Growth in Engagement and Monetisation
Leading titles are leveraging high-density, multi-layered Live Ops frameworks to systematically orchestrate event portfolios. By ensuring players are simultaneously engaged across multiple activities at any given time, these games cater to diverse player motivations and behavioural segments – driving sustained increases in both engagement and spending.
Live Ops systems typically operate across multiple layers, including recurring events, feature events and large-scale events.
Recurring events commonly include daily missions and check-ins, standard promotions, win streak mechanic, and milestone progression systems. These mechanisms are designed to sustain daily engagement while laying the groundwork for mid-term and large-scale event participation.
Feature events serve as the operational “rhythm layer” of the game. Formats such as battle passes, mini-games, treasure hunts, gacha mechanics and bingo events provide freshness and mid-term objectives. They deepen player interaction with core gameplay systems while creating additional monetisation triggers.
Large-scale events represent the peak of a game version cycle. They introduce server-wide milestones, deliver premium rewards and prestige and act as key drivers of long-term retention and high-value spending. These typically include major seasonal events, PvP and PvE competitions, alliance championships and collection systems.
A Closer Look at Common Live Ops Mechanics in Mobile Games
Rolling offers are a specialised promotional format that links a series of standalone bundles into a structured progression chain. Players must claim or purchase each bundle in a predefined sequence to unlock subsequent rewards. By combining a “free entry > progressive unlock” path design, rolling offers effectively lower the barrier to first-time purchase. The built-in continuity and element of controlled uncertainty stimulate curiosity and increase conversion intent.
A battle pass is a progression-driven Live Ops system built around continuous tasks, level advancement and tiered rewards. Players earn experience points through various in-game activities to unlock rewards at each level. By providing clear objectives and a structured progression path, battle passes significantly increase player engagement and retention.
Collection systems are long-term progression mechanics built around earning and completing collectible sets, such as cards or albums, to unlock high-value rewards. Clear collection goals drive engagement and retention, while strong completion motivation increases card pack purchases and paid event participation – creating stable, scalable monetisation loops.
Large-Scale Holiday-Themed Events Drive Sustained IAP Growth for Whiteout Survival
Century Games’ 4X strategy title Whiteout Survival capitalizes on key holiday marketing moments by launching large-scale themed events to sustain IAP growth.
In late October 2025, the game rolled out nine interconnected Halloween-themed events – including Pumpkin Invasion, Spooky Gathering and King of Phantoms. This coordinated event portfolio drove daily revenue to a three-month peak.
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This article was written by Rui Ma, Senior Analyst, APAC at Sensor Tower, and authorised by Nan Lu, VP of Marketing, APAC. Please credit Sensor Tower if you wish to reprint or share this content.
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